LOUIS PIERRE'S SISTER
Those to whom the gardens and parks of Versailles are not familiar can form no idea of the manner in which aristocratic dignity imparts elegance to rural, sites. The impression is not that of sweet melancholy so often produced by country scenes but rather of a lofty magnificence, which weighs upon the soul and becomes even a solemn ennui, which proceeds from the very regularity and grandeur of the royal domain, wherein one still involuntarily looks for powder-headed dames and cavaliers in embroidered waist-coats.
On Sundays it was permitted the public to enjoy the park, which during the week was deserted save for the gardeners and guard, who, wearing bandoliers and holding rifles, watched over the safety of whatever members of the royal family happened to be in the Palace.
Nazario Patin, sergeant of the guard, was quite taken aback on receiving orders to retire the soldiers on Thursday from the avenue leading to the Great lawn, from the Latona pond, the Columnata wood and the Apollo grove. A second order, no less explicit, followed to the effect that he was to hold these guards in waiting in the assembly hall, in case they should be needed.
On Wednesday evening the Duchess arrived at the Palace. Patin soliloquized:
"She wishes to promenade tomorrow and look on no human countenance, so greatly is she given to prayer and meditation. But that the guard should be retired! Hum! I can't understand."
On Thursday four men wearing the simple uniform of the ordinary guard, bearing rifles and in their belts hunting knives, arrived in the deserted park from the Ville d'Avray road and approached one of the little gates opening towards les Trianones which Marie Antoinette, discarding pompous ceremonial, used to frequent. Cautiously they opened the gate, using a key carried by him who seemed the leader. They held a conference in low tones, as tho fearful of disturbing the birds in the trees. The leader's southern type revived recollections of the Catalan smuggler, Albert Serra, a gentleman whom we met in the apartments of Baron Lecazes, just returned from London and professing to have successfully lightered a ship of a cargo of cutlery. This was Volpetti's disguise when he wished to represent a man of the lower classes.
"Beware!" he was saying to the others. "Listen well and execute even better. A false step will be fatal to our object. You, Lestrade, are to guide him into the garden. He comes by the route we have taken and will travel on foot from this side Le Chesnay. As for you, Sec and La Grive, remain without, near the gate. I only shall remain inside the park. When he leaves the garden, I shall follow him; and if I signal you by raising my arm, throw yourselves upon him, gagging and binding him. Whatever you find upon his person is to be taken to my superior, the Minister of Police. No matter what happens save the booty. Your lives, my life, are worth nothing in comparison. Whoever carries the prize to the Minister will be a lucky man, I pledge my word."
Making motions of assent, the party dispersed. A deep quiet spread over the park, along whose paths the Duchess was even now walking. Her dress of violet silk embroidered in passementerie, betokened mourning. She held her hand on her heart to still its beating. At about the same time, Patin, sergeant of the guard, his services not being required, turned his steps in the direction of a lady friend, a certain laundress, in whose kitchen, so gossip had it, there was never lack of savory dishes and pleasant chitchat for the handsome sergeant. On ascending the stairway, he met a girl whose face seemed glorified by the splendor light of yellow hair, arranged in curls, according to the style of the period. As he drew back to make room for her, he muttered to himself:
"The picture of the beheaded Queen!"
Some moments later he was asking the laundress, as she stood at her table ironing a dainty garment:
"Who is that young girl in mourning that has just left your neighbor's apartment?"
"I do not know. I have never spoken with her but I scent a mystery. There is a cat in a bag, several cats, rather. You know my neighbor well."
"I should say I did. I have known her and her brother Louis Pierre Louvel a lifetime. Such a sullen silent fellow! I wonder where he is now. No one seems to have heard of him since the banishment of his beloved Emperor."
"Why he is here, my boy. He has been here for three days. He brought with him to his sister's house that young girl and a handsome young man. They came stealthily and they have all kept as quiet as mice. I have not seen even Louis Pierre's sister. She must however go out at night to buy provisions. But through a window I have seen the f aces of Louis Pierre and the handsome gentleman."
"Has he been casting eyes at you?" jealously inquired Patin, whereupon his mistress boxed his ears, and so diverted his thoughts from this trend of suspicion regarding the new comers.
"I could swear that these people are conspiring," remarked the laundress.
"You are dreaming, my dear. I have but just met the girl on the stairs. Why should you become suspicious because a brother visits his sister?"
"That a brother should visit a sister causes me no surprise, but there are queer kinds of brothers and queer ways of paying visits. Will you believe that the sister denied to me yesterday that her brother was with her?"
"Rosa, that is indeed strange," remarked the sergeant pensively.
"I do not like Louis Pierre. He is capable of anything."
"Well, my little Rosa, stop your gossip. I don't suppose danger is being plotted. Neither the King nor Princes are in the castle; as for the Duchess, she is a saint whom no one would harm. What amazes me is the resemblance of the girl to the dead Queen."
"She is a live bird, I'll warrant," answered the woman.
While this dialogue was in progress, the blond girl in black rapidly crossed several streets and reached a deserted square shaded by elm trees. She was almost immediately joined by a man with whom she walked for some distance, entering at last the beginning of a park by a path which skirted the wall. The man consulted from time to time a paper plan which he carried in his hands. He stopped suddenly and examined a breach in the wall.
"Louis Pierre was right," he said.
He vaulted the fence and held forth his arms for the girl, who, crawling along the ruins, came within his reach. Taking her by the waist, he held her for a moment against his breast and spoke passionate words of love.
"Amélie!" he whispered, "when will you become mine for all time? I adore you more than ever."
"René, I long for it as much as you. But O the saddest of presentiments weighs upon me. My father's mind seems giving way beneath the weight of his sorrows. His reason is clouded and confused. If his sister does not open her arms today, alas for him, alas for us! And she will not; this interview is part of an infernal plot—"
"Amélie, you express my fears also. But none of your father's friends are sleeping on their oars. Louis Pierre knows every inch of ground on this place. We are here to defend the cause, he, Giacinto and I. 'Twould have been better had you not come."
"Perhaps so, René, but I wanted so much to be near you. Do not heed my seeming coldness of the last few days. How could I fail in mourning for that innocent, noble man,—victim of low intrigues and his own loyalty? He typifies the people, the people sacrificed to the classes."
"I have been jealous of your devotion, your gratitude. I have longed to be the dead. Had I died, what should you have done?"
"Died with you, René."
He stooped and kissed her eyes, holding her close in his arms.